Riverbank looks to broaden merchant restrictions

Having restricted tattoo shops, city leaders now will consider banning cafes with online gambling; lounges where people smoke hookah pipes, e-cigarettes and vaporizers; smoke shops selling drug paraphernalia; and possibly stores selling e-cigarettes.

All pose dangers to “public health, safety and welfare,” say staff reports calling for the City Council on Tuesday to impose emergency 45-day moratoriums on applications for such businesses.

The unusual moratorium flurry has some merchants scratching their heads – and in the case of one five-year business, packing up to leave town.

“From what I have seen, (city leaders) find something that scares them and they propose a moratorium,” said Daniel “Dano” Friedman, owner of Soul Patch Tattoo, Riverbank’s newest tattoo shop.

Body-art and small-business supporters packed the council chamber Sept. 23, urging the council not to drive them out of town. City Hall staff had justified the temporary ban by suggesting that tattoo shops are “usually associated” with gangs, drug deals and deadly diseases.

Plenty were offended at that language. Council members tried to reassure the audience that Riverbank is not anti-business, and they exempted from the ban applications by Soul Patch and by Sin Cal Industries, a Crossroads shopping center tattoo operation whose owner had applied to move across town.

Sin Cal owner Jeremy Fennel said he threw a celebratory pizza party for his employees and invited Friedman as a kindred spirit. But Fennel’s application bogged down in red tape, he said, when city staff wanted control over his store hours and demanded that Sin Cal employees submit to criminal background checks.

“I told the city, ‘I’m done; I’m shutting down,’” said Fennel, whose run for City Council failed last year. Sin Cal’s building sign came down Friday and the business will close Monday, he said, then will reopen in Modesto in a couple of weeks or so.

Also Tuesday, the Riverbank council will consider extending the tattoo moratorium to one year. All other proposed bans could be lengthened similarly, and the council eventually could extend them to two years.

Four of the five council members would have to agree Tuesday to enact any of the proposals.

Although Friedman dodged a bullet when the council exempted his application, Soul Patch remains in the city’s cross hairs because an electronic-cigarette business with a pending application shares space in his shop.

Several e-tobacco advocates protested the proposed bans at Tuesday’s Planning Commission meeting, noting that e-cigarettes sold by merchants throughout town have not brought calamity to the City of Action.

Planning commissioners recommended that the council not outlaw new e-cigarette retail applications, but the council will have the final word Tuesday. Like e-cigarettes, vaporizers combine nicotine and flavor but are larger and last longer. Hookahs are water pipes.

All can cause cancer, heart disease and breathing problems, and so can their secondhand smoke, staff reports say. “The proliferation” of lounges and stores selling such products “may adversely affect the city’s ability to attract and retain businesses and shoppers,” the reports say.

Friedman said Friday, “I’m a businessman. Hello? If Bibles are flying off the shelf, I’d sell Bibles. What people want to buy is what you sell.”

A report specific to online gaming says stores have tried to draw customers by offering Internet access for gambling devices similar to slot machines. Such operations are illegal in California, which allows gambling only on tribal property and in regulated card rooms.

People waiting turns at online slots might form “long lines outside these businesses,” perhaps blocking sidewalk traffic and causing “other unknown impacts” on neighbors, the report reads. Also, “students and minors are often targeted with advertising ... which may encourage the assembly of significant numbers of unsupervised minors” and truancy problems.

Each proposed moratorium is “essentially a time out for the city to evaluate the best way possible to regulate these businesses,” the reports say.

Mayor Richard O’Brien had publicly called for e-cigarette regulation in June. On Friday, he said he prompted the slew of moratoriums because, when he became mayor two years ago, he found “a lot of holes in our General Plan and codes” guiding growth and economic development.

“I want to make sure our land use is appropriate for a $17 million face-lift of downtown” completed a few years ago, the mayor said. “We’re doing this to make sure we get what we truly want downtown.”

O’Brien opposes illegal gambling. For the rest, “We’re not calling anyone a bad influence and no one is being driven out,” he said.

Fennel, a churchgoing Eagle Scout, doesn’t feel that way. He had offered to help city leaders draft guidelines for incoming tattoo artists, an industry regulated by state law through the county. He also said that the city does not demand background checks for shadier businesses.

“On my honor, I would have stayed here,” he said. “But if you’re going to discriminate against me, I’m not going to lay down and take it. I’ll go somewhere else.”

This story was originally published October 25, 2014 at 4:46 PM with the headline "Riverbank looks to broaden merchant restrictions."